For pedestrians, the law of the Chinese road/jungle maintains that one can only survive by possessing cat-like reflexes and all-seeing peripheral vision. Otherwise, you might end up giving a rather minimalist street theater performance whereby you lie prone on the ground for the edification of assembled onlookers. Canadian diver Kevin Geyson, in Shanghai for the FINA Championships, unfortunately did not receive this highly-urgent memo in his inbox: crossing the street outside of the Oriental Sports Center in Pudong, Geyson was hit by an oncoming vehicle on Saturday. Currently being treated at Huashan hospital(华山医院)in Jing'an district by both Chinese and Canadian doctors, Geyson's condition is reportedly stable.
International incident at FINA Championships: Canadian diver hit by a car
Weekendist: FINA continues, Mesa & Manifesto closes, and a TICT beach party!
FINA continues this weekend and the swimming finally kicks off on Sunday! Phelps in the hizzouse. If swimming's not your bag, don't worry because there is plenty of other stuff going on around town to keep you occupied. Mesa & Manifesto is closing, TICT is throwing a beach party, and Dada's screening another North Korean film! Read on for details, or check out our calendar for more!
Meet fixing scandal hits Chinese diving
China's national games haven't even officially started yet, but they are already the backdrop for an ugly scandal in one of the country's most treasured sports. Don't worry--diving queen Guo Jingjing's piles of Olympic gold aren't in jeopardy. But the integrity of the sport's biggest domestic competition was shaken when a referee quit working the national games because, she says, the result are all fixed.
Guo Jingjing returns to the pool... in Florida
Last week, China's diving team announced that it would skip the upcoming FINA Grand Prix in Fort Lauderdale due to swine flu fears.
Chinese netizens to Tian Liang: You're not worthy
The second career of Chinese diver-turned-actor Tian Liang has so far been received tepidly, but his latest role has sparked a big debate in China. Tian, a gold medalist in platform diving at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney and a bronze medalist in Athens, has been chosen to play Lei Feng, a soldier held up by Mao as an example of selflessness for all of China to follow. The choice of Tian for the role has angered a host of Chinese netizens, who basically argue that Tian is too self-centered, materialistic and publicity-loving to play Lei Feng. Tian was kicked off the Chinese diving team ahead of the 2008 Olympics for too enthusiastically pursuing commercial activities.
Guo Jingjing denies Hong Kong 2012 rumors
If Guo Jingjing (郭晶晶) isn't in the pool, she must be in the tabloids. Post-Olympic rumors have the diver taking her gold medals and moving to Hong Kong, where the buzz is that she may marry her boyfriend Kenneth Fok and compete for Hong Kong in the 2012 Olympics.
Aussie denies China diving sweep
Going into the final dives of the men's 10-meter platform competition, it looked like China was about to sweep all eight diving gold medals, with Zhou Luxin and Huo Liang in first and second place. But Australia's Matthew Mitcham, trailing the leader Zhou by more than 30 points, went for broke with a 3.8 degree of difficulty dive, a back two and a half somersault with two and a half twists. He got four perfect 10s and scored 112.10, the highest score in the history of Olympic diving, to snatch the gold from his Chinese competitors. Mitcham is the only openly gay man competing at these Olympics.
DIY at the Water Cube thanks to NY Times
There's a pretty sweet interactive feature on the NY Times website right now that let's the reader have a virtual experience atop the 10M diving platform at the National Aquatic Center (aka "Water Cube"). It includes a minute long audio description from American Olympic diver Thomas Finchum, but the real highlight is playing around with the panorama. We wish we could be there ourselves except we're afraid of heights. And water. And mobs of people. And oh yeah, we're not Olympics athletes, so this will be a nice alternative.
Today's links: Tibet and Taiwan, Olympic updates and dieting pandas
"An adult giant panda usually created 10 kilograms of faeces perday, however, now it only produced 2-3 kg because of scarce food, said Wang."
Olympic diver Guo Jingjing slammed by the Chinese media
Diving queen Guo Jingjing (郭晶晶) has been slammed left right and centre for her less than stellar behaviour at a press conference after taking home the silver for the women's 3m springboard final at the "Good Luck Beijing" FINA Diving World Cup where she was edged out by team mate Wu Minxia (吴敏霞).

